“For me, it’s just like comfort”: When did Tom Cruise become weirdly obsessed with popcorn?
Tom Cruise might just be one of the most baffling figures in cinema, with a conflicting presence as he endears audiences through his passion for cinema but simultaneously unsettles us through his slightly strange level of blind enthusiasm and antics in his personal life. After making his start with Risky Business in 1983, the actor quickly soared to the top of Hollywood with leading roles in cult classic films like Top Gun, The Colour of Money and Rain Man. He took up a varied collection of roles that showcased his commitment and desire to be challenged and made evident his talent.
Through working with directors like Martin Scorsese, Barry Levinson, Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick early on in his career, he became the darling of independent cinema, with few being able to predict that the pendulum would soon swing and he’d become a powerhouse of commercial cinema as well. In later years, he evolved into the face of high-octane action blockbusters, often varying in how well they’ve been executed. Cruise is now known for his ability to push his performance of dangerous stunts to prove just how much of a cinematic maverick he truly is.
But this is something he’s demonstrated in a strange way after the release of the final Mission: Impossible film, with the actor devouring popcorn in a way that shatters his performance of being a normal person.
Cruise is one of those people who could easily be an alien passing off as a human. And while he mostly succeeds, every now and then, he does or says something so bizarre that the illusion is shattered. It could be his sometimes tiring professing of love for the movies, in which he says the same perfectly crafted sentence in every interview about how his entire life is devoted to cinema. But the chinks in the armour sometimes throw light on his increasingly extra-terrestrial tendencies after he used this line in response to a question about how he’d be spending Father’s day. His kids aren’t mentioned in his answer, and he instead talks about how his perfect day would be spent making movies—a little bit odd.
It also somewhat comes through when countless Hollywood celebrities talk about the fabled coconut cake he sends to a select group of his esteemed colleagues and friends each year, with everyone discussing the excitement of seeing it delivered on their doorstep. The TV show Hacks even did a hilarious bit on it for season three. But then, you contrast this with the crew members from one of his films who were told they were receiving a special gift for their hard work, and they were surprised to discover that the gift was a calendar with his face on it.
Among these cases and more in which Cruise has proven himself to be from another planet entirely, a recent example was his strange way of interacting with his bucket of popcorn while visiting screenings of the final Mission: Impossible film. The actor was spotted eating the classic cinema-time snack in a very forceful and slightly cartoonish way, pelting it into his mouth with great vigour, in an exaggerated manner.
Cruise reveals that he often eats two buckets while watching a movie, noting, “I love going to a movie and getting popcorn. For me, it’s just like comfort, you know? I love the comfort of a movie theatre. And I love getting popcorn. Everyone knows. The theatre-owners, I get there, they’ve got the popcorn ready for me.”
He might be the greatest movie star on the planet, but perhaps this final act has blown his cover for good, and revealed him to be someone who is not quite from this world.
